Effects of some natural flavonoids on retinal function recovery after ischemic insult in the rat

Purpose: There are six natural flavonoids studied recently and their effects on ocular blood flow measured with colored microsphere technique. It was found that three out of six compounds showed strong positive effects in increasing the ocular blood flow. In this study, we tried to find out whether these results can be translated on their effects to improve retinal function recovery after ischemic insult. Methods: Electroretinography was used to measure the b-wave recovery as an indication of retinal function recovery. Results: Naringenin, hesperetin, and rutin were found to produce marked positive effects on b-wave recovery, whereas naringin, hesperidin, and quercetin showed poor recovery of b-wave after ischemic insult of the retina. Conclusion: It was found that the compounds that showed strong increase of ocular blood flow also showed marked increase of retinal function recovery, whereas those that showed poor increase of ocular blood flow also showed poor effects on the retinal function recovery.